Project Card - Cities in a box Project.

Three Students explain the drafting of their work.

These brief clips speak for themselves. Sophisticated, hard working and talent young people.

Project Based Learning -Avoiding the Content Trap

I've made a mistake. I knew I would. I have been drawn into the content trap, again.

"We can build projects that engage students in their cultural roots and yet are academic projects to the core." Ron Berger.

I always start projects with the best of intentions of balancing  content and the skills and attributes, that's why I value projects. Projects can help build that classroom community so vividly described in Ron Bergers work, but buidling community takes time. Time, that in the heat of the moment seems too short to "fit" all the content, that culminate in the ever eating thoughst of " I'll just give them  more minutes to finish this task", and "they need to know this....." Content is dominating.

"My ethic of excellence runs deep, we care for where we live, the people here, not just our academic skills" Ron Berger.

The result is evident in our class blog. Barely any student reflection, student work, resources , class discusion are all there, but the time for all of us to take stock and value one another is missing. So far only two out of the three classes doing this project have had a whole classs discussion about how they are getting on. Even these were sparse in their conversations. Most of the reflection has been on a one to one basis and fleeting. I've made no time for our community. In fact, the class that have not had a whole class discussion are the class that need it the most. It's time we got back to what makes us good people and what good learning communities do.

"Building and maintaining a positive community takes constant vigilance. It's a job that's never really done....." Ron Berger.

So here's the plan.

The next lesson for all classes will start with a simple round robin discussion. Each student will be given one of these questions and a moment to compose a response. All responses will be accepted. Using a round robin allows me not to run the conversation, students will be asked to jump in, piggy back on answers, and agree and disagree. They, the community, will lead the conversation.

The questions are unashamedly positive (only one or two ask for potential negatives), I'm hoping for a small celebration of us as people, of what we can be like. If this does not happen and students don't have examples of listening well to one another or  been trustful of one another then that's O.K too. This task will at the very least raise the profile and the desirability of these qualities. It prompts a need to be emulative. I'm hopeful that it will further strengthen our classroom community.

How have you shown trust to others?	Who has helped you the most during this project? Why?
Who has impressed you so far during this project? Why?	When did you listen to someone very well? How did you do it?
When has someone listened to you carefully during this project?	What are the strengths of your team?
What are the strengths of the people in this class?	Who in your team has worked hardest during this project so far?
How do you feel about the class blog show casing your project?	How do you feel about inviting people from home into see your projects?
Describe a time when someone has helped you during this project?	Describe a time when you have said Thank you to someone during this project?
Describe a time when you have complimented someone’s work during this project?	Describe a time when someone has complimented your work.
Describe how someone’s feedback has made your work better.	Describe when you have given feedback to someone.
Describe when someone has distracted you from your work.	Have you distracted someone from their work.
How have you motivated someone in your group?	How has someone motivated you?
How has negotiating help your project?	How has critique helped your project?
How have you shared the responsibility during this project?	How have you made agreements as a team?
How have you discussed your project as an “adult” would?	What talents have the people in your team brought to the project?

UPDATE

Here is a recording showing these questions in use, although no discussion took place each student contributed in a sophisticated and positive way.I think the culture of this class is evident lets hope it shows and develops with  all  classes.

It's not all about 'Stenders- A student conversation in a S.O.L.E.

I ran a lesson today loosely based upon a Self Organised Learning Environment (S.O.L.E) today with my a year 7 Secure Science class whom I meet once a fortnight. We have met three times so far and each time we have used this structure.

 Today I posed the question

 "How do scientists make sure that the data they collect is
A) Precise
 B) Accurate
C) Valid
 D) Reliable
 And why are these qualities are important?"

They were given 30 minutes research time and then as part as their demonstration I asked them to discuss their findings as a group of adults would for a period of 5 minutes. It turned out to be 7.41 minutes. The only help I gave them was I left the questions upon the whiteboard and I modeled good listening behaviours, making eye contact, raising eye brows and subtly nodding to show I too was listening.
 This is the conversation.
 

The things i think they did really well are:
 1. The large number of students readily involved themselves.
 2. Many tried to exemplify their ideas they did not read from their notes but referred to them.
 3.The organisation that was attempted " Before we start, can we just check that everyone understands the terms"
 4. The consistency of the ideas
 5. Although not all comments were right, many were, and as a teacher it gave me the information to identify what I needed to do next
 6. There's intermittent agreement " that's what we said" and "yeah"
 7.They refer to the original questions and use it to ask each other questions, and they answer them.
 8.They listen to one another "its like your sugar and water thing""I know what Laura is saying..."
 9.They find importance in not only there work but in the content themselves.
 10.They see the big picture " I think all those qualities are linked together.
 11.How they support one another "it's precise..".

 I am even more impressed on the second listen, the sophisticated and articulate conversation. These are 11 year old students working with a teacher for the third time.

 We debriefed the lesson after we discussed their understanding, and I ensured each student had a voice. So far SOLE is novel for the students and they are excited and intrigued by it, but they are clearly getting better at it, and they feel as though they are learning and it's a worthwhile approach. I think their engagement is palpable and their passion for such a difficult, abstract and (on the surface) disconnected topic is impressive.

By Josie and Emily.

I asked two students if they coudl summarise what they thought of Critiquing. Here are their thoughts undiluted and without alteration. 

The Importance of critiquing-

We think critiquing is good and important because it helps to...

Complete all of the criteria and check the other person has too. This is important as to achieve the full potential of a write up,drawing,etc. You need to ensure that all of the points or features are focused on, in detail. For example,check if people include both sides of an argument? Or in a drawing scenario, have the minor details still been focused in on?

Reading other people's work and using it as inspiration for your own. Not necessarily copying,but enhancing your own work. For example,if the other person has included a particularly effective phrase,or point about the argument,include it in yours to improve it! This helps you to share thoughts about what should be included, and generally improve your work!

Information around you,you can collect more information through other people's work,e.g the community scroll of information as a reliable source that you can trust. A source of information like the scroll is really useful. For example, if you don't have time to research but want to quickly find out about,say,solar energy, look at the community scroll (class display) for a variety of important diagrams,facts and figures. This helps to condense information,and use the big facts, to save time and share facts.

Talk and discussing ideas,rather than sitting alone writing an essay,makes learning more enjoyable,therefore putting in a motive to get the piece of work complete. It makes it good to compare different opinions and thoughts. For example, if you do task A and write an essay about it,and your partner does task B and writes an essay about it,while critiquing their work,you can learn about the actual task B and they learn about task A,taking in twice as much information.

Improve your work in general. If you critique a few times,and compare the first and second,there is a drastic difference. It's almost like putting your work through a focus group test,seeing if one person understands and learns from it,before publishing it for the teacher to read/mark. This makes you achieve your best ability,as although your partner points out improvements,you still do the work and make it make sense.

Question your work and improve it,through another's eyes. In a real life example,Josie thought her write up about fossil fuels was the best to her ability, however,when Emily pointed out improvements from a first-eye source,it made Josie realise how much more she could've done in the first place. Therefore,if we get used to critiquing others work,when we are older and in a job,we can almost critique our own work,independently.

Understand the importance of teamwork,and collaboration, community thinking and sharing ideas. This helps build teamwork,valuing critiquing people's work as important as completing your own.

Ideas shared to get a balanced view,rather than simply one opinion,to come to a more balanced conclusion. For example, if you already,before beginning to learn about a topic, have strong views on it,it may be hard to write a evenly balanced and unbiased essay,however if you read somebody else's essay it may open your eyes to a new arguement.

Not just a teacher's opinion,more varied opinions to improve your work for all audiences. The teacher is working off a grid from the curriculum,the peer is working from their own sense and probably no knowledge on the subject,therefore making a good audience.

Guide you to get a peer's opinion on your work. There are always improvements to be found,in learning and life, nothing is perfect,so there are always ways you can critique work KIND (critique the WORK,not the people, don't use "you" or "shouldn't,couldn't,wouldn't, say what they CAN do instead of what they CAN'T), SPECIFIC(say exactly where,highlighting or colour coding makes it easier to point out places) and HELPFUL(make them easy to improve,for example,don't say "your spelling was bad" or even "the spelling in this piece of work could be improved". It is more helpful to say "There could be improvements in spelling these words; atmosphere, solar and fossil")

Overall,we believe,as students,critiquing is an important lesson in learning,and in general life. It is a useful skill to incorporate in lessons, in order to prepare future "self critiquing" as well

Students talking about the benefits of Critiques and Drafting

As part of creating a learning an agenda in my classroom  I like to keep the pedagogical purposes of the strategies used clear and open. So it is easy to imagine how pleased I was when a student turned up today with two drafts of their work! These year 7 students are redrafting a Scientific write up. They have experienced one full critique before this one. It's nice to see how accepting of challenge and hard work they are. The quality of their work matters to them and they feel as though they are learning by doing this.

The most interesting thing for me in this how they see the benefit of the Feedback Norms as lead to to something helpful, and not just being told to do it again. Again this is indicative of the need for a classroom culture that allows and nutures high quality student work. Another small step towards this I think......

Student Perspectives on the "Wild about Cramlington" Project.

"Wild About Cramlington"Book project process Review

View more presentations from DKMead

These are the views of my Year 9 Students who had just completed their first Project Based Learning experience. It is great to see that they are begining to care about what they are learning about and their local community. There are also nice signs that students are beginning to trust one another and value the feedback they recieve from one another, not bad considering there only came together as a group only for this week. It's made me realise (again) of how important it is to establish a learning community in our classrooms.

Obviously the most pleasing outcome of this is not just the fact that they have learned something but that their learning goes beyond the classroom, beyond just trying to please (or appease) sir. There are signs in these statements that it matters, to others what they have learned. I think this came about from two corner stones of the design of this week. Firstly, the product was a useable, real thing that was going to be published, and secondly the presence of experts during their learning, as Learning Futures would describe them Extended Adult World Connection.

Do the Project First- Olympics Style.

This video is not intended for you to watch, you can if you want, but it serves merely as evidence that I have indeed followed the advice of Jeff Robin at High Tech High and I have done the project first.

My year 8 students have just began a Science Project on the Science of the Olympics, where they had to choose an Olympic sport, research the Forces that are employed in the sport along with the antagonistic muscles that create them. So just simple Physics and naming of a few muscles are expected as the content. But in the one lesson that I have had with these classes I have already noticed a benefit to this paired down content. That the students have began to unlock the content that belongs to them and is allowing for genuine co-construction to take place. So amongst some of the notable queries and discussions we have had are:-

1. "Sir, it says that people who go on a Skeleton for the first time have a 50% of dying! I wonder how they worked out the probability?" which left me ruing that this is not a maths and science project.

2. "Sir, what do you call the shape of the pattern that an Arrow flies in...you know that curve thing?" "A parabola. " So how does that work then ?". This conversation has taken place in three out of the four lessons, and not always with the top end of the KS3 levelling hierarchy that we use to determine intelligence and success in this country. One of the students had just scraped a level 5 in the last topic test. (Irony).

3. "Sir is it OK if I video myself Ice Skating, Swimming, Running, Playing Basketball....I have not done it for ages!"

4. Two girls jumping up and down flailing their arms about who said " Sorry sir we were just trying to work out if your arms help pull you up when jumping!"

5. "Sir, can we make the music, the scenery, do stop gap animation as homework?"

6. Three boys who had chosen Table tennis and then regretted it as it had became boring. Responded to my request of "can you finding a way of making it interesting for you?" Found out that it was banned in Russia for 53 years, if memory serves as they thought it could make you blind!" They were skeptical (great scientific thinking I'd say) but are now in love with Table Tennis again.

But perhaps my favourite so far has been one from a student who I have struggled to engage. Who asked today " So Forces and Energy are different aren't they?" I felt like Mark Moorhouse (@MarkMoorhouseMM) !

The point I'm trying to make is by allowing students to find and define some of their own learning can take students to deeper and more interesting learning, by developing a true engagement as opposed to a learning compliance. I know I am going to have my work cut out but will endeavour to teach to the requests.

None of this would have happened if I had said "research and Olympic sport and make a video". I imagine that I would get a load of pilfered images, pixelated , inappropriate and compiled in an uncreative way. Do the project first!

The video above is not perfect but took me 9 hours to make. So imagine my joy when one class even gave a spontaneous round of applause. All the others sat perfectly through it, often glancing and smiling at me when I appeared on screen. I think my applause was for the error ridden guitar playing, which is my first public performance! I think they saw that I had taken a risk and was a learner too. I tweeted this and received a great response from Mr Moorhouse that simply said " Great Learning commons!" I love this notion that students and teachers are in this together! Read more in the latest Learning futures pamphlet here.

As I have said and not just as a disclaimer, the video is far from perfect. However it serves an important role in this project, and that is to set the minimum standard, I expect my students can and will produce better. I think I could have made a better one but did it on my own and with no critique, not an excuse but stating the power in the critiquing process. I will use this as model so that the students and I can define together and success criteria.

Another reason to do the project first.

I also manage to model a few techniques and strategies. that my students could use to avoid the pilfering of low quality images. It also has work of varying quality from me in that shows that I have learned too. My presentation with a box on my head is very self conscious but by the end hearing my voice in some of the voice overs I am more confident and clear. (Well if you are fluent in my native tongue!). I have learn to edit moving pictures in Movie maker and to edit sound files using Audacity. These skills are transferable and teachable now.

Another good reason to do the project first.

It also allowed me to figure out what I thought the minimum content should be, and what was difficult in the content and the process too. I'm now more prepared for differentiation, to support my students and design groups that will work. I have also been able to assess how long my students need to do this and plan a schedule that is appropriate.Deadlines were shared at the beginning of the project to allow my students can plan ahead. Or at least have the opportunity too. This is what used to happen when I worked outside of education, it is one way of "Making Learning Whole" as David Perkins fine book encourages, it helps make this a real experience.

So I will finally state in true Jeff Robin fashion that none of this would have been learned and applied if I had not DONE THE PROJECT FIRST.

An example of a critique.

My students in year 7 are currently working on a project where they have to analyse a basket of food items through the eyes of different characters for example a vegan, an althlete or a mum on a budget. They researched food items in a pre selected "basket" and found the nutrients, food miles and chemicals used in their production or manufacture, as well as creating character profiles for each of the "analysts".
After this research they were requested to make some art work based on this research and we then critiqued it around these questions. This was their first exposure to this technique and the feedback norms, which are find are encouraging a rigorous dialogue in the classroom.

1.Hard on content, soft on people.
2.Step up, step back.
3.Feedback must be kind, helpful and specific.

Next we began writing scripts for these characters, and these audio clips are from their second attempt at critqiuing each others work.
I requested them to make brief presentations with around 25 minutes to prepare. To guide them I modelled the kind of thinking required on an exerpt of work and set guiding questions. My students are increasingly aware of SOLO taxonomy and are beginning to refer to it, again I modelled this before they began.

Essential questions were set to encourage high quality feedback. Which are given below.

It is most pleasing to hear the students use them and make specific reference to them in their presentations, which helps them focus on the content and provide specific feedback. I feel the structure of a presentation also encourages all students to contribute too and also assist in getting the balance between student and teacher feedback. One of the great strengths of critqiues is that they help build a community of learners, where every student is aware of what the others are learning and are able to provide help to one another. This is true student voice in action,and it's all about learning.

http://audioboo.fm/boos/350706-an-example-of-student-critique-presntation

A teacher running a session must be confident in using wait time before and after students have spoken, resisting the temptation to jump in with an answer. I personally find note making helps keep my mouth shut and helps me go beyond the feedback that student have themselves given.

Here is an example of the students written feedback followed by an audio boo of them discussing the work. I conclude the presentation asking if the feedback was useful, and giving feedback on the feedback itself. Students need training in doing this, although for only their second attempt this is really rather good feedback.

The next audio boo is from a student who has just received some peer feedback which was very positive. She feels as though the feedback was not helpful enough, which allows me to reinforce the norms and prompt for some of the things that I thought she could do. This students is extremely talented, I think it was great for her peers to see her request guidance, it sends a clear message that success is not something that you have its something that you work towards. http://audioboo.fm/boos/350762-was-that-useful-feedback

The final AudioBoo is the students who have just given this feedback responding to the question "what have you learned by giving this feedback?". It is essential that critqiues are seen as being beneficial to everyone. This is often missed in peer feedback, the people who benefit most are the ones who give the feedback. Again listen for teacher wait time, which has students adding to what they have previously said and others actually joining in. It is a most effective technique.
http://audioboo.fm/boos/350767-what-have-you-learned-by-giving-feedback